


Things We Said in the Dark

by yoncepadthai



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I suppose, Idk what to tag this as, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 08:49:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6949315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yoncepadthai/pseuds/yoncepadthai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Karen and Frank's first time they share secrets long kept hidden away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things We Said in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the line, "someone who truly understands you without you having to say a word".

There was a combined final grunt.

Then Frank pulled back from their kiss and with a long exhale, tipped his head back down to the pillow, where it landed with a heavy thud.

Karen peeled herself off him and slid onto her side, still panting from exertion, catching her breath.

They laid there in silence. Heavy ragged breathing slowly returning closer to normal. Minutes ticking by.

She was lying in the same position she had fallen in, resting. Her back to Frank as she faced the wall and peered out into the darkness. He had not moved either, still lying on his back. He kept his eyelids low and peered up at the darkened ceiling.

Karen felt a single silent tear roll out of her eye. She could have shifted her weight more into the pillow. It would have rubbed the tear away. Instead she let it fall without interruption.

Her voice rang out as she confessed to the darkness in front of her.

“I've killed two men.”

Her breathing was almost calmer than normal.

“Maybe four, you could argue. Ben, he's who I inherited the tapes, the car from, he unknowingly took a bullet that was meant for me.”

Her voice was uncharacteristically devoid of emotion. She sounded like she could have been reading pages aloud from a book she found disinteresting.

“And my brother Kevin," she let out a heavy audible sigh, "um, he died because of me too.”

Frank was silent. His own breath even and steady. Eyes still fixed on the ceiling.

Neither one of them moved a muscle. The only sounds in the dark room coming from their shallow breath.

A few minutes later Frank's voice, low and humming, broke the silence.

“Maria was my high school sweetheart. First everything. She was the only one I'd ever been with.”

Frank took his time speaking, giving long pauses at the end of every sentence.

“It'd been 'bout two months since we had sex. I couldn't get it up. Just. Couldn't do it.”

His voice was unusually detached, sounding like he too, was indifferently rehearsing lines.

Karen and Frank had whispered these things to themselves, in the depths of their minds, over and over and over again. These words had been thought with such frequency, that when they were finally spoken out loud, they could no longer muster any emotion behind them. 

“As a man, I failed her. I failed her in every way a man can fail his woman. Every fucking way.”

The darkness loomed around their naked bodies.

Their naked souls.

More silence and time passed between them.

Then Frank moved his gaze from the ceiling to Karen's bare shoulder.

It had to have been least fifteen minutes since either of them had spoken. Maybe she had fallen asleep. He brushed his twitchy trigger finger against her shoulder twice.

Lost in her own thoughts, she turned her head towards him, “Hmm?”

“Nothin',” replied, “just checkin' if you were asleep.”

At this, Karen twisted herself around, and laid on her back. Her shoulders almost touching his. Her gaze now staring upwards at the roof.

Every so often Frank's finger would twitch against her legs.

Karen didn't react. She knew Frank's twitches were involuntarily.

But then she felt the voluntary movement of Frank putting his hand across her own. Gently taking her hand.

They laid there, shoulder to shoulder, holding hands, fingers interlocked.

Frank's hand nestled against Karen's leg, Karen's hand half resting on top of his leg.

She tilted her neck to look at him directly. His eyes and face moved to meet her's.

They stared at each other.

Eyes now adjusted to the dark.

Searching every inch on the other's face.

Karen's small worry lines in her forehead. The deep bags under Frank's eyes. Frank marveled at how pale Karen's eyelashes were without mascara. How rosy her skin was without foundation. Karen followed the small line of shadow down Frank's face that carved out his cheekbones. The secret flecks of grey along his chin stubble that he would shave away in the morning. 

In each other's eyes they could see everything.

They were completely exposed.

But there was nothing to say. No words of comfort or words of wisdom would console them. They both knew in the pit of their own stomach how the other one felt.

Their eyes reflected it all.

They shared the same heavy burden of guilt, the same faint glint of rage at being powerless, the same glimmer of constant vulnerability hiding in the back of their eyes, the same look of tiredness that no sleep would cure.

As she stared into his eyes, Karen felt a strange smile briefly tug at the corner of her mouth.

Frank caught it and let out a soft sigh. Seeing it, somehow, brought him more comfort.

He moved towards her, leaning onto his own side, and wrapped himself around her in a tight embrace.

Karen closed her eyes as she let herself be swept up into the comfort of his arms and pulled her own arms around him.

Frank rested his forehead onto the soft spot between Karen's neck and shoulder. His eyelashes closed and nestled just above her clavicle. Karen had one of her long legs wrapped up and looped near Frank's waist. The other leg was tangled safely in between the anchor of his two legs. Karen's blonde hair falling her shoulder and cascading over Frank's face. The dark wavy locks from the top of Frank's head blanketing her jawline and cheek.

Time passed and droplets of sweat began to form - produced by their unclothed bodies in close contact. Each had one arm slowly going numb from being pressed under the other. Neither one of them moved.

They laid there, facing each other in locked embrace, squeezing each other so tightly. Hugging each other, and themselves, to sleep. 

They drifted off to sleep as one. Their nightmares kept at bay.

Feeling a little less alone in the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> Played with the idea that after they have sex for the first time, instead of there being this release of happy endorphins there's this release of all these secret inner thoughts they usually keep bottled up. 
> 
> Plus, I can't write fluff or smut to save my life sooo, I decided this was the closest thing! 
> 
> Sidenote, I had to stare at photos of Jon's face to look for features to write about. I mean, wow, the difficult sacrifices I had to make. ;) ;) ;)


End file.
